grab a glass
by Fade131
Summary: It was making him nauseous, this feeling. Warning for a little gore.  Originally posted 3.5.2008
1. Chapter 1

**Warning:** A little bloody gore-ness.  
>...<p>

..

It was making him nauseous, this feeling. He wanted. He wanted-

_Red and hot and sticky, oozing out and all over his hands and his arms, all over his clothes, all over everything._

It would have been harder if he had seen the last move. The last swing. But they had both overused their Sharingan, and _his_ vision was poor to begin with.

_The spray of blood had splattered his face, and when he rubbed his eyes it left crimson streaks on his skin._

It was everywhere. His shirt was soaked - _and hadn't he held his brother tight, in that last moment, pressing his lips to quickly cooling skin?_- but it wasn't getting worse. Without his heart beating, there hadn't been any substantial mess when he'd removed the head.

_His brother's head, in a cloth sack._

Oh, Kami.

He'd done it. He should have, he thought, felt proud of himself. _Don't you see, Aniki? I've finally surpassed you. I'm finally the better one. It took me so long, but it's me, and not you. Not you._

But he didn't. He felt sick. Breathing was difficult - _his ribs ached, his side felt like it was on fire, the slice down his back stung and stretched whenever he moved_.

And he was damned if he couldn't see. But everything was hazy and black and skimmed over, and he only knew there was blood everywhere because he could smell it and feel it and he remembered being covered in it before his chakra had depleted so much that his eyes had stopped functioning properly.

_If he'd kept the Sharingan activated, or tried to, he probably wouldn't even have the hazy afterthought of sight he retained at the moment._

He paused. Turned back. There - there was the blurred shape of his brother's headless body. A frown passed over his features.

_Focus, focus, you can do this, you've got just enough left to do this-_

The Sharingan flared to life, flickered, melted in together and spun, angry, a pinwheel in his eyes.

There was his brother's headless body, clear and covered in red, the ring on his finger glinting in the fading light, his necklace dropped into the pool of blood and no longer around the stump of his neck. Broken and lifeless.

The Mangekyou faded quickly, taking most of his remaining eyesight with it. He didn't mind. He could tell which way he had to go to get home.

Konoha was like a beacon in his mind, bright and shimmering.

And so he went home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **And here's the sort-of second part to this, where Naruto actually shows up.

...

..**  
><strong>

He walks in the room. Silence. Doesn't look at you, doesn't speak. Like he doesn't know you're there. Like it's all been nothing. You're shaking, pressed against the cold wall, can't look because what's the point? You wouldn't see him, anyway. Haven't seen anyone since you came back. The weight of everything is pressing down on you. You can only see what you did, over and over again.

You can't even remember how you got here. You knew you were going home, could see it in your head even as your vision darkened and the pain of overuse forced you to close your eyes, to protect what was left of them. Part of you remembers reaching the gate, being intercepted by the ANBU, being taken here, to the Hokage, having limiters set on your chakra and soothing hands pass over your eyes. You remember she said something, or maybe a lot of things, but they weren't important because nothing was important now that you were home and it was done. Nothing until he came to see you. Nothing until you could speak to him, beg him to forgive you somehow.

And he's still just standing there, watching you cower from him, wondering who this person is - not the one who left him a month ago (had it only been that?), not the one who he had pleaded with and raged at and fought, not the one he had wanted to stay, not the one who had promised to come back. Not the one he loved. That's what you're thinking, as he stares at you, as the pain of all of it finally breaks through the blank emotionless wall you've been building up ever since you were a child, and you start to cry, in quiet, heaving sobs, hands over your face like it will protect you. You hear the shuffle of feet and you think he's stepped back, you think he's leaving, finally he's done what you told him to do so long ago and abandoned saving you.

But then there are hands on yours, stuck through the bars to pull you close, and he's holding you as best he can when they won't let him closer, and you want to stop crying and find you can't, you can only cry harder, because he didn't give up on you. He believed you when you said you'd come home. And he tells you over and over that you're home now, that it will be all right, and you listen because how could you not?

They make him leave then, make him let you go, but it doesn't matter. Even though you're scared - more afraid of this and what they'll do to you for leaving than you were about leaving in the first place, more even than you were about facing _him_- you know it has to be all right, because he's said so. He wouldn't lie about something that important, not to you.

So maybe you can rest, for now, until the Hokage comes back - it won't be for a month, and by then you'll be on the edge of another breakdown, because there's nothing to think about here except what you've done - and when she does you'll be prepared, you'll be calm, you'll be in control of your emotions. And when they pull you in front of the council and tell you that you can live, that you can stay, that you can be _here_, where he is, the emotions might not wrap around you so tightly that you can't breathe, and for once in your life you might just be able to _be_.


End file.
